Four Just Men

Edgar Wallace
PROLOGUE.
THERY'S TRADE
If you leave the Plaza del Mina, go down the narrow street, where,
from ten till four, the big flag of the United States Consulate hangs
lazily; through the square on which the Hotel de la France fronts, round
by the Church of Our Lady, and along the clean, narrow thoroughfare
that is the High Street of Cadiz, you will come to the Cafe of the
Nations.
At five o'clock there will be few people in the broad, pillared saloon,
and usually the little round tables that obstruct the sidewalk before its
doors are untenanted.
In the late summer (in the year of the famine) four men sat about one
table and talked business.
Leon Gonsalez was one, Poiccart was another, George Manfred was a
notable third, and one, Thery, or Saimont, was the fourth. Of this
quartet, only Thery requires no introduction to the student of
contemporary history. In the Bureau of Public Affairs you will find his
record. As Thery, alias Saimont, he is registered.
You may, if you are inquisitive, and have the necessary permission,
inspect his photograph taken in eighteen positions--with his hands
across his broad chest, full faced, with a three-days' growth of beard,
profile, with-- but why enumerate the whole eighteen?
There are also photographs of his ears--and very ugly, bat-shaped ears
they are--and a long and comprehensive story of his life.
Signor Paolo Mantegazza, Director of the National Museum of

Anthropology, Florence, has done Thery the honour of including him in
his admirable work (see chapter on -'Intellectual Value of a Face');
hence I say that to all students of criminology and physiognomy, Thery
must need no introduction.
He sat at a' little table, this man, obviously ill at ease, pinching his fat
cheeks, smoothing his shaggy eyebrows, fingering the white scar on his
unshaven chin, doing all the things that the lower classes do when they
suddenly find themselves placed on terms of equality with their betters.
For although Gonsalez, with the light blue eyes and the restless hands,
and Poiccart, heavy, saturnine, and suspicious, and George Manfred,
with his grey-shot beard and single eyeglass, were less famous in the
criminal world, each was a great man, as you shall learn.
Manfred laid down the Heraldo di Madrid, removed his eyeglass,
rubbed it with a spotless handkerchief, and laughed quietly.
"These Russians are droll," he commented.
Poiccart frowned and reached for the newspaper. "Who is it--this
time?"
"A governor of one of the Southern Provinces."
"Killed?"
Manfred's moustache curled in scornful derision.
"Bah! Who ever killed a man with a bomb! Yes, yes; I know it has been
done--but so clumsy, so primitive, so very much like undermining a
city wall that it may fall and slay--amongst others--your enemy."
Poiccart was reading the telegram deliberately and without haste, after
his fashion.
"The Prince was severely injured and the would-be assassin lost an
arm," he read, and pursed his lips disapprovingly. The hands of
Gonsalez, never still, opened and shut nervously, which was Leon's

sign of perturbation.
"Our friend here"--Manfred jerked his head in the direction of Gonsalez
and laughed--"our friend has a conscience and----"
"Only once," interrupted Leon quickly, "and not by my wish you
remember, Manfred; you remember, Poiccart"--he did not address
Thery--"I advised against it. You remember?" He seemed anxious to
exculpate himself from the unspoken charge. "It was a miserable little
thing, and I was in Madrid," he went on breathlessly, "and they came to
me, some men from a factory at Barcelona. They said what they were
going to do, and I was horror-stricken at their ignorance of the elements
of the laws of chemistry. I wrote down the ingredients and the
proportions, and begged them, yes, almost on my knees, to use some
other method. 'My children,' I said, 'you are playing with something
that even chemists are afraid to handle. If the owner of the factory is a
bad man, by all means exterminate him, shoot him, wait on him after he
has dined and is slow and dull, and present a petition with the right
hand and--with the left hand--so!'" Leon twisted his knuckles down and
struck forward and upward at an imaginary oppressor. "But they would
listen to nothing I had to say."
Manfred stirred the glass of creamy liquid that stood at his elbow and
nodded his head with an amused twinkle in his grey eyes.
"I remember--several people died, and the principal witness at the trial
of the expert in explosives was the man for whom the bomb was
intended."
Thery cleared his throat as if to speak, and the three looked at him
curiously. There was some resentment in Thery's voice.
"I do not profess to be a great man like you, senors. Half the time I
don't